River Marked (Mercy Thompson #6)(23)
Author: Patricia Briggs

"Jim Alvin," said Jim, stepping forward. I’d told them not to meet his eyes, but he did better than that. Maybe it was luck, maybe he knew something of werewolves or just wild animals, but he turned one shoulder forward and tipped his head sideways and down submissively even as he reached out a hand. "Of the Yakama Nation. Thank you for the help. Benny’s a good man." I noticed that Adam didn’t get the elaboration of tribal bloodlines that I had.

"Do you know what happened to him?" asked Adam, after giving Jim’s hand a brief shake. His eyes were wolf-bright, ominous yellow in the illumination of their flashlights.

"No idea at all," Jim said.

Fred Owens stepped up. His head was lowered, too, but he was looking up into Adam’s face.

"I’ve seen all kinds of kills. A bear might bite off half a man’s foot the way Benny’s was. A bear or some other big carnivore."

It was a challenge, of a sort, and I held my breath.

The tension dropped from Adam’s shoulders, and he suddenly grinned. "You think I bit off his foot? Hell, Marine, I just got married. I have more important things to do." "Barracuda," said Hank into the sudden silence. "It looks like a barracuda … or maybe a tiger shark. They have these odd teeth that they saw back and forth."

"The Columbia," said Jim slowly, "is freshwater."

"Tiger sharks have been found up fresh waterways," Hank persisted.

"Not up past dams," said Fred. "How did you know I was a marine?"

Adam’s eyes were now honey brown, not quite his usual bitter chocolate, but safer than before. "Easier than spotting a cop," said Adam. "Might as well have it tattooed across your forehead." He paused for effect, then said, "It helps that you’re still wearing your dog tags."

"You’re not a marine."

Adam shook his head. "Army ranger. I never could swim–and since I became a werewolf, I’m all but useless in the water."

"Could his foot have gotten caught by one of those old jaw traps?" asked Calvin, speaking up for the first time. "It looked sort of like that to me."

"I haven’t seen one of those things being used since I was a kid," Jim said. "And it was illegal then. But he’s right. It could do that sort of damage."

"A bear trap wouldn’t catch two people," Hank said. Adam might have won over Fred with his military fellowship, but the other Owens brother was still suspicious. "Where is Faith?"

"He was afraid of something." I frowned at the unconscious man. "Really afraid. But it wasn’t Adam."

Fred nodded abruptly at his brother. "No ranger would be dumb enough to leave a witness alive."

Apparently, he felt that left Adam in the clear.

Hank looked less certain and rubbed a hand along his ribs as if they hurt. Maybe he had strained something carrying Benny up the hill, or maybe it was a reflex thing.

About that time, the ambulance, followed by a sheriff’s car, pulled up. With practiced speed, the EMT people slipped Benny onto a gurney, and the ambulance roared off to the nearest hospital. The officer took down names and statements. He seemed to know the other men, and, from their body language, they all got along pretty well. When Fred told him Adam was a werewolf, the officer tensed up and ran his flashlight over us.

His gaze brushed by me, then stopped. "You’re bleeding," he told me. He aimed his flashlight at my leg–and damned if he wasn’t right.

I pulled up my pant leg. It had been so cold, and my feet had taken such a battering, I hadn’t really been paying attention. It hurt, but I hadn’t connected that to actual damage. And there was quite a lot, really. Something had ripped the skin off my calf and taken some meat with it. It looked like a really nasty rope burn.

"I got caught up in some weeds wading out to Benny’s boat," I said. "Benny hit the motor while I was holding on to the boat and pulled me loose."

"That doesn’t look like something a weed would do," Fred told me, shining his flashlight on it. "Some of those underwater plants can be sharp and slice you up some, but that looks more like you pulled free of a hemp rope."

"All sorts of garbage in that river," said the deputy. "Lucky you didn’t get caught up in deeper water. Ambulance is in use, but I could run you to the hospital."

"No," I said. "It’s nasty, but I’m up-to-date on my shots. Mostly it just needs cleaning and bandaging, and we have the stuff to do that."

Adam had knelt to get a good look. I heard him take a deep breath, then move closer. After a minute, he shook his head and stood up. "Thought I smelled something odd, but there’s no telling what a rope might gather sitting in the river."

The deputy swallowed, having been reminded what Adam was. "You four can take your boat back? Okay. Leave Benny’s boat there, and we’ll get people to check it out and see what that tells us. Mostly we’ll just have to wait until Benny can tell us what happened to Faith and his foot. At this point, I expect it’s some sort of accident."

"I saw a man attacked by a barracuda once," said Adam. He looked at Hank. "I agree it looked a lot like your Benny’s foot." He glanced at Calvin. "Not a metal trap. Those old jaw traps are built to dig in and hold the animal, not go all the way through the bone. A bear trap might crush a foot off, and there was some crushing on Benny’s foot –but mostly it was sliced. Something with sharp teeth went after him."

"No barracuda in the Columbia," said Fred. But he didn’t sound like he was arguing. "No sharks, either, for that matter. It looks to me like something a piece of farm machinery might do. But I’ve never run into a baler or harvester in the river."

My leg, once I’d noticed it, began to itch. It looked as though it ought to hurt more than it did, but right now, it itched. Maybe I’d gotten into some nettles or something while I was running around bare-legged.

Adam glanced at me. "I need to get Mercy to camp."

The deputy said, "You guys go get your boat and go home. Mr. Hauptman, I can take you and your wife back to your camp so you can take care of her."

He was scared of Adam. When we got in the car, the scent of his fear filled the air. I don’t think a human would have noticed, though, and a little bit of fear wouldn’t set Adam off.

Adam had a lot of experience dealing with scared people. By the time we reached the campground, the deputy was deep in a discussion about what the impact of a second campground in the Maryhill area would be.

"What we really need here is a good restaurant or two." The deputy’s voice carried his conviction. "The museum has a nice deli, and there are a couple of places in Biggs, but they are always overflowing with highway traffic. You have to drive all the way to Goldendale, The Dalles, or Hood River for really good food. Those are too hard to find for the tourist business pulled in by the museum or Stonehenge. I figure we lose a lot of business because we don’t have enough places to eat."